It totally has love in Japan. It has sold almost 1.4 million consoles there! That's almost bigger than the world wide sales of 32X and Virtual Boy combined!!!

Surpassing the Wii and PS3 in weekly sales isn't gonna happen. But Kinect will boost sales and they'll continue to have steady growth.

I still think Japan is not a very important region. Their attach rates are abysmal. According to this site, the PS3 has sold 138 million units of software in NA. But only 23 million in Japan.

no.

In the Kinect onslaught which is to come perhaps the only bright spot for the PS3 is Japan.  I do think though that the 360 will see a significant increase in Japan but nothing compared to the increases it'll have in North America and Europe.

Sorry man, but the 360 does not have love in Japan. 1.4 million units is dismal when compared to how it sells overseas, and in comparison to the competition. If anything you could say Japan has a mildly, luke warm, interest in the 360.

It really is sad. The 360 deserves better. 

I used to think it was the brand name. Japanese are reluctant to embrace a foreign product because they dont know or are not trusting of the name. But then the Apple Ipod, Iphone and Ipad came out which pretty much shot that theory to hell. i-macs still sell like crap though.

The only way they increase market share is by bringing in a totally exclusive relationship with several of the key japanese publishers. I don't mean the exclusive arragangements with a few exclusive fringe games like they have been doing. I mean someone like Sega, Square, or Konami staying independent but handing all of the publishing duties for 5 years or so over to Microsoft Game Studios.  And lets be honest that would never happen because it would alienate most of their in house studios and talent to leave and go to other publishers.

Can you name anything else that is "American" that sells well in Japan?  I don't think I can.   So yes, they are xenophobes when it comes to foreign companies.  Even though "Japanese" companies have their products made in China just like the rest of us.

Yes I can name plenty of American of western stuff that has caught on. McDonalds, Coca Cola, KFC, Nike, Adidas, Puma, Hollywood movies, Care Bears, Elmo and on and on.

What I should have said was foreign brand name electronics. In that case Apple does seem to be the rare exception. But man does Apple know what they were doing. Personally, I think Steve Jobs is a big headed prick, but between Pixar and i-pods the man gives people what they want.

first off let me say thanks for everyone that commented on my thread ........

but lets see at tokyo game show kinect wait line was 3 hours and 40 mins wait time and some exlusives were 2 plus  3 hr wait time while final fantasy was only 20 mins the lowest wait time but could be that  a year old port but anyways  i think that at kinect launch it will boost hardware sells a big margin but if kinect cant stay constant higher trend it will fail and i wonder also if japan has problems for westernized items why dont they have microsoft of japan make it  is beyond me

who knows really? I´m inclined to think it wont but it may surprise us all. I doubt it will be enough to up it over ps3 or wii though.

No clue what the buzz is for Kinect over there.  The TGS lines supposedly had a 3 hour wait, so that shows a lot of curiosity at least.

Have any Japanese stories or polls been done about this that anyone knows of?